PONCA TRIBE OF NEBRASKA

COMMUNITY ENVIRONMENTAL PROFILE

PONCA TRIBAL GOVERNMENT:

The United States Government as defined by the United States Constitution has
governmental relationships with International, Tribal, and State entities. The
Tribal nations have a government-to-government relationship with the United
States. The Ponca Tribe signed treaties with the United States which are the legal
documents that established the Tribal homeland boundaries and recognized our
rights as a sovereign government.

The Ponca Tribe lived near the Missouri River in present day Nebraska in the
days prior to diplomatic relations with the United States government. The Ponca
Tribe signed several treaties in 1817, 1825, 1858 was originally designated
reservation lands along the Missouri River recognized in a treaty with the United
States signed in 1865.

The Ponca Tribe operates under a constitution consistent with the Indian
Reorganization Act of June 18, 1934. The Tribal Council governs the Ponca Tribe. The
Tribal Council consists of a Chairman, Vice-Chairman, Secretary, Treasurer and
three additional Councilmen all of whom are elected by the tribal membership.

The Tribal Council Chairman serves as the administrative head of the Tribe. The
Tribal Chairman, Officers and Council serve a term of three years at-large
without regard to residence in a particular district of the reservation.



A recreation of a Ponca village

LAND:

The Ponca Tribal homelands are located in portions of three noncontiguous
counties located in the eastern third of the state of Nebraska. The counties are
Knox and Madison, situated in the northeastern section of the state, Douglas and
Lancaster, located in southeastern Nebraska and Charles Mix in south central
South Dakota. The service area covers approximately 1,800 square miles. The Tribal
Headquarters is located in Niobrara, Nebraska. There are four field offices
located within the service area. in Lincoln, Norfolk, Omaha, and Sioux City,
Nebraska.

The Ponca Tribe maintains the right and responsibility to provide environmental
authority in compliance with Tribal and Federal law for protection of the land
and resources within the exterior boundaries of the reservation through code
development and regulatory mechanisms. This includes all rights-of-way,
waterways, watercourses and streams running through any part of the reservation and to
such others lands as may hereafter be added to the reservation under the laws
of the United States. The maintenance and protection of the land is very
important to the Ponca Tribe. and our future generations.

HISTORY:

On their journey westward in 1804, Lewis and Clark came upon the Ponca Tribe.
The Poncas were a small tribe, numbering approximately 700 during the 1800's.
Lewis and Clark reported that the tribe, once a part of the Omaha Tribe,
separated and lived along a branch of the Red River near- Lake Winnipeg. However, the
Sioux forced the Poncas, as well as many of the smaller plains cultures, to
relocate to the west bank of the Missouri River in the early 1700's.

Because of the Ponca's limited population, they were subject to both the Sioux
and the advancing wave of white settlers. The Ponca's did not engage in any
wars or other armed conflict after 1825. Nor do records exist showing that any
member of the Ponca Tribe ever killed white settlers or soldiers.

The Ponca Tribe entered into four treaties with the government of the United
States. The Treaty of 1817 was a treaty of "peace and friendship" between the two
nations. In the Treaty of 1825 the Poncas acknowledged that they lived within
the "territorial limits of the United States" thereby recognizing the supremacy
of the government. The Poncas also authorized the government to regulate all
trade and commerce-

The third treaty, signed in 1858, nullified the Poncas' title to all their
lands occupied and claimed by them "except for a small portion on which to colonize
or domesticate them." The fourth and final treaty signed in 1865 ceded an
additional 30,000 acres of their reserved land. This final treaty provided for a
reservation of 96,000 acres in the present day Nebraska counties of Knox and
Boyd.

It was the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868 that forever altered the course of Ponca
history. Among other things, it established the boundaries of the Great Sioux
Reservation which included 96,000 acres of land that was the Ponca Reservation.
The Ponca became trespassers in their own aboriginal homeland, Over the next
eight years the Ponca repeatedly appealed to the government and assistance but
received very little.

In 1876, the government formulated a policy to consolidate as many tribes as
possible in Indian Territory in Oklahoma, The Ponca Tribe was approached by a
government agent who offered to take the Ponca chiefs to Oklahoma to look over
several alternative reservation sites. Prior to their departure, the agent
promised the chiefs that if they didn't like the land they saw they could return to
their Nebraska homeland. The Ponca chiefs made the journey to Indian Territory,
visiting many different land reserves which were equally barren and unsuitable
for agriculture.

The chiefs agreed not to exchange their land but instead return home. Upon
informing the agent of their decision, the agent threatened to withdraw all money
and support, including the interpreter, The chiefs stubbornly refused to
relinquish their Nebraska homeland so the agent departed without the Ponca chiefs. The
chiefs, some of whom were advance in years and ill, were forced to make the
journey in the middle of winter without money, food, or an interpreter, Fifty
days later, near starvation, the Ponca chief-, reached the Oto Reservation along
the Kansas-Nebraska border. The Oto s provided them with enough food and ponies
to make their way back to Niobrara.

When the chiefs returned home, they found their people already preparing for
the move, -Federal troops were called in to enforce the removal orders. The long
march took a heavy toll on the tribe, over half of -which were women and
children. Storms, poor road and traveling conditions greatly impeded their journey;
causing much suffering and death. Standing Bear's daughter was among those who
died along the way.

In the summer of 1878 the Ponca arrived in Indian Territory. The Ponca were
quartered in tents they had brought with them: no other provisions had been made
by the government for their accommodation. Discouraged, homesick, and homeless,
the Ponca found themselves in the land of strangers, in the middle of a hot
summer, with no crops nor prospects for any. Having been on the move through the
summer of 1877 and 18-78 the Ponca had been unable to cultivate the soil for two
years. In 1878 they suffered greatly from malaria. As the Ponca had come from
their northern home where such ills were little known, the disease, was
particularly fatal to them, and man died of it after they reached the Indian
Territory. In fact since the tribe had left Nebraska, one-third had died and nearly all
the survivors were sick or disabled. Talk around the campfire was continually
of the "old home" in the north.

Finally, the death of Chief Standing Bear's eldest son set in motion events
which were to bring a measure of justice and worldwide fame to the chief and his
tribe. Unwilling to bury his child in the strange country, Standing Bear
gathered a few members of his tribe and started for the Ponca burial ground in the
North.

Because Indians were not allowed to leave their reservation without permission,
Standing Bear and his followers were labeled as a renegade band. The Army
advanced and took them into custody and were prepared to escort them back to their
reservation in Indian Territory. The Omaha Daily Herald publicized the plight
of the Ponca and two prominent attorneys decided that a writ of habeas corpus
could prevent the Ponca from being forcibly returned to their reservation in
Indian Territory. The government disputed the right of Standing Bear to obtain a
writ of habeas corpus on the grounds that an Indian was not a "person" under the
meaning of the law.

The case of Standing Bear vs. Crook was brought before Judge Elmer S, Dundy in
U. S. District Court on April 30, 1879. On May 12, 1879, the judge filed in
favor of Standing Bear. The government appealed Dundy's decision, but on June 5,
1880 the Supreme Court of the United States dismissed the case leaving Standing
Bear and his followers free and clear in the eyes of the law. Although Standing
Bear and his followers were free they had no home to return to. In August of
1881, 26,236 acres of Knox County, Nebraska were returned to the Ponca.

Although a portion of their Nebraska homeland was reinstated, only half of the
tribe returned to their previous home. Poverty and disease would continue to
take their toll over the years. In 1945 the government formulated a policy which
called for termination of Indian Tribes- This policy effected some 109 tribes
and bands, including 13,263 Native Americans and 1,365,801 acres of trust land.
In 1962, the Congress of the United States decided that the Northern Ponca
Tribe should be terminated. In 1966 the Northern Poncas were completely terminated
and all of their land and tribal holdings were dissolved. This termination
removed 442 Ponca from the tribal rolls, dispossessing them of 834 acres and began
the process of total decline.

During the 1970's members of the Ponca Tribe, unwilling to accept their status
as a terminated tribe, initiated the process of restoration to federal
recognition. In 1986 representatives from the Native American Community Development
Corporation of Omaha, Inc., Lincoln Indian Center, Sequoyah Inc., National Indian
Lutheran Board and Ponca Tribe met to discuss what they needed to do to once
again become a federally recognized tribe. In the spring of 1987, the Northern
Ponca Restoration Committee Inc. was incorporated as a non-profit organization in
Nebraska and was the base for the federal recognition effort.

In April of 1988 the Nebraska Unicameral passed Legislative Resolution #128
giving state recognition to the Ponca Tribe and their members. This was an
important step in the restoration efforts. The Ponca Restoration Bill was introduced
in the United States Senate on October 11, 1989 by Senators James J. Exon and J.
Robert Kerry. The Senate passed the Ponca Restoration Act by unanimous consent
on July 18, 1990. The bill was signed into law on October 31, 1990 by
President Bush.

Today the Ponca Tribe of Nebraska headquarters is located in Niobrara Nebraska.
The Ponca Tribe, which was dissolved by an act of Congress over 30 years ago,
is once again rebuilding its traditional culture. The Ponca are now rebuilding
their land base, on their aboriginal homeland.